According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel by Mark Mathews and Bobby Block, commercial space supporters within NASA, a group soon-to-be under survival, if not other, pressures, are worried that the Senate’s compromise space bill will only put NASA back on the same so-called “unsustainable” path it was on with Constellation.
“Days before the compromise was announced, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver told its two champions — U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas — that NASA could not finish the proposed new rocket before 2020, according to three sources present at the meetings.”
Given the involvement by some in NASA’s executive leadership in creating the very policy that the Senate Bill will reverse, it’s not surprising that those same individuals were critical. What is surprising is that such criticism of the Nelson Bill is being presented in such a one-sided manner. A balanced treatment of the many options for going forward with our nation’s human space program should not be the exception, but the rule, so that voters on the Space Coast and elsewhere can be better informed.
